eyes wide shut
by PerfectPerception
Summary: In which Oliver fully loses his sight, Miley nearly loses herself, and everything falls apart while they fall into place. — OliverMiley


**Author's Notes/Warnings:** I just found out I suck at summaries; especially with this story. ANYWAYS. This is really, really long (my second longest piece, in fact) and is a definite angst-fest throughout the entire story so do try to brace yourselves; however, the ending is a bit on the happier note.  
**Disclaimer:** Everything is Disney owned.

-

"_Everything will be okay in the end_. _If it__'__s not okay_, _it__'__s not the end_."

-

When Miley was little, before her head was clouded with heavy thoughts of fame and bright lights and gossip and love and lies and hate, she had wanted to be a veterinarian or a nurse. Mama always said she had a gentle way with animals, that her hands were like blindfolds that shielded the world's troubles away. And she believed Mama, she really did, until she was lied to in the most horrible of ways.

Mama said she'd be all right, that she was getting better, but she wasn't. She was dwindling away right before the family's very eyes and they just couldn't seem to catch the unraveling streams of Mama's fading life.

Miley's trips to the horse ranch became scarcer and scarcer and instead focused herself on running to the hospital every chance she was given. Mama would be lying so delicately on the pristine mattress of the hospital room, waiting for her, and Miley would perch her little body on the white, white stool and read Mama stories. Sometimes, she'd even create her own ones, without books, papers, or pens. She'd paint these pretty scenes with colorful characters and funny, southern dialogue that always had Mama laughing in complete blithe. She'd then pour Mama many glasses of water, press creases out of the white hospital sheets, and fluff Mama's sagging pillows.

That's when she wanted to be a nurse. Because Mama said she was such a good one. And Mama was much more important than her animals alive and healthy back home.

-

When her glass dreams of becoming nurse had shattered, _Mama_ had turned into _Mom_ a year before.

She was eleven, chatting away about her new story she had fabricated upon spot, when her mother's bright, lively eyes began to dim.

Miley's heart nearly stopped.

"M-mom?" she whispered frantically, leaning closer. She withdrew slightly when her gaze met her mother's emptying one. "Mom!"

"Miley, honey, please don't stop talking."

"But m-mom—"

"You've got a magnificent gift, baby girl. Your voice is so, so soothing and you come up with the most lyrical stories." She paused, lifting her opened palm mid air. "Hold onto my hand and _don_'_t_ stop talking."

Miley swallowed painfully, tears threatening to spill from her watery blue eyes. But she did as she was told, grasping tightly onto her mother's hand, internally wincing from the cold feeling of flesh she felt like she was holding. "But I-I… I d-don't think I can keep-keep t-talking to y-you when y-you're like th-this."

"Do you want to be a nurse still?"

She inhaled sharply before shaking her head. "I don't know, mom. I don't know what I should be."

"You know what I think you should be? A singer, baby girl. You've got this incredible talent like your father. You should pursue it."

"Mom, you're n-not holding m-my hand tight enough," whimpered Miley. She waited for a response. A beat. But all she received was nothing."MOM!"

She didn't want to be a nurse anymore for two reasons. The first was because her mother suggested a more exciting career avenue to explore and the second was because she didn't think she could bear to watch people other than herself lose loved ones. Because the pain was far too familiar and frightening and if she were ever forced to relive it over and over again, she thought it might be just the death of her. And Mama wouldn't want that to happen.

-

She wished though; prayed and prayed, that she could trade in her current singing career for a nurse one when she heard the yelling, sobbing, desperate wails from Lilly on the other end of the phone.

"_Oliver, Miley, Oliver! There was an accident—__he…__ he might not live_!"

Miley suddenly heard someone else joining in with Lilly's tragic screaming and only realized it was herself when she caught a glimpse of her own hysterical face in a mirror.

-

This was her first visit. It felt heartbreakingly familiar as she entered the cold room, shades of gray and white decorated against the unblemished, unscathed walls and angles of it. She didn't knock, she never did, but her steps were loud and heavy and echoed across the empty corners.

"For the fifth-freaking-time, _no_, I don't need my pillows fluffed!"

She leaned against a wall, smirking slightly as she masked her trembling voice with a confident tone, "you sure about that? That's probably _all_ I'd ever do for you."

"M-Miley?"

She stepped swiftly to his bedside upon his frustrated expression that surfaced. "Yeah, it's me, Oliver."

It turned out that her best friend thankfully hadn't died in the accident that occurred weeks before. But because life as we know it wasn't fair or justified, he didn't make it out alive completely unscathed.

Fate had taken his ability to see.

There were bandages wrapped securely over his eyes and there were areas of hair that was buzzed off for surgery purposes. He appeared weak and pale and, as she approached him closer and closer, she could feel bile rise in the base of her throat and fleeting thoughts of turning around and running away clawing at her mind. Luckily she did neither and perched herself on the foot of his bed. He shifted uncomfortably under her stare and she swallowed down dry air.

"Lilly was here before," he informed. "Why weren't you with her? She wouldn't tell me."

He turned his face the wrong direction and she felt tears sting her eyes.

"We… we haven't been talking lately." responded Miley. "We just…"

"It's because of me."

"No," she lied and he looked unconvinced. "It's just a little… h-hard to hang out now… we just miss you and… and we can't seem to talk without—"

"So it _is_ my fault," he deadpanned.

"Oliver," she sighed, resting her hand on the shin of his leg—the nearest body part to her, and he immediately shook it off.

"_No_," he growled. "Just… I'm tired, Miley. I think you should go before a nurse yells at you or something."

She agreed without so much of a protest.

Before she left, though, she wondered if she had lost her calming touch her mom so feverishly claimed she had that she harbored years ago. While walking down the white, white hallways of the hospital she supposed she did. In fact, she lost her entire childhood to her mother's death.

-

The second visit went slightly better. It was about a week later, on a Sunday afternoon and they sat in silence in a significantly smaller timespan. Lilly had gone an hour before and her and Miley still maneuvered about each other so the blonde was, once again, absent.

Oliver had been the one to break the taciturnity both he and Miley equally possessed. "Can… can I feel your hand, please?" He forced a nervous smile in attempt to make things less awkward.

It didn't do much. But, inwardly, she was secretly relieved that he could remember how to smile. Because she herself had almost forgotten.

"Yeah, of course."

It felt strange at first, how his fingertips trembled against her knuckles because they had held hands on so many occasions before. It was like they were complete strangers, reaching for nonexistent familiarity between them. But he managed to somehow find it, and the pads of his fingers glided gently over the back of her hand. He paused suddenly and she looked at him in alarm.

"You sure this is Miley? Your hands are kinda on the dry side."

She opened her mouth in surprise and weakly smacked his shoulder. "You doughnut!"

-

At first, they remained in silence for her third tarriance. He then shakily asked to touch her hand again and she politely obliged. She forgot what she was going to tell him; to say, and instead watched as his hand carefully turned hers over so that her palm was facing upwards. She suppressed a shiver when she felt his thumb graze over her wrist, and he finally spoke.

"Go ahead and just ask already."

"Ask what?" she blinked.

"If I can see at all." he murmured and she swallowed painfully.

"Well, can you?"

"Sorta," he answered surprisingly. "I mean, I try to whenever they take the bandages off to change them with clean ones. I can see some color, it's all a big blur though; I can mostly just make out shadows and stuff. The doctor said I'll probably lose all my sight by next year."

"Oh Oliver," she sighed. She felt hopeless. Completely, utterly helpless. "I'm sorry."

"You have no reason to be, Miley," he said, "it's not your fault this happen. It's not your fault I'll never be the same."

Miley bit her bottom lip, bitting down until a coppery taste danced on to the tip of her tongue. Gradually she lessened the sharp pressure and licked her dry mouth, blinking slowly before forcing hoarsely, "but people aren't _meant_ to stay the same. Not their entire life. How will they ever grow up?"

He paused and turned to where he thought Miley's face had been. He was a little off, but she shifted slightly to level them out. "I'm never going to skateboard again."

"Sure you will," she assured quickly and he frowned. "I _mean_ it. We'll get you on a board again and you might not be able to do all those tricks like before but rest assure you'll definitely be better than me. Actually, you could have one leg and you'd probably be better than me."

"Miley, a kid could have _no_ legs, arms, and, like, a heart, and still skate better than you."

"Exactly!" Oliver's frown deepened upon her comedic attempt to alleviate the tension in the air and she then apologetically placed her unoccupied hand over his stilled one with its fingers still wrapped tightly around her other hand's wrist. "What I'm really trying to say is that things may not necessarily be the same, Oliver, but things will get better. You just gotta give it some time, you know? Everything good takes time."

"You don't have to pretend like you _don_'_t _pity me," he hissed in response, sharply withdrawing his hand from her light grasp. "You don't have to pretend like you actually give a damn if I can see shadows—because as much as that doesn't mean anything to you, it means something to me. It makes me feel like… like I still have that part of my life. Because you know what? I could _see_."

His voice cracked and she felt compelled to look away; to look anywhere except toward him.

"_I could see_."

She wondered if he repeated that to remind her or himself.

-

For her fourth visit she came and sat on his bedside without exchanging a word, her eyes determinedly counting the number of tiles laid on for the floor beneath their feet.

_Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…_

"I'm sorry…" Miley glanced at him at the sound of his contrite tone. She smiled weakly.

"I know."

"I'm scared," he whispered next, extending his trembling arm out again with his fingers stretching apart.

She quickly clasped onto his hand with hers. "I'd call you a fool if you weren't."

"But you already call me a doughnut. Isn't that, like, the same thing?"

"Nah, a doughnut is a lovable buffoon, much like yourself," she corrected, "and a fool is someone like Uncle Earl when he thought he could win a swimsuit competition for guys. A complete idiot. There's a big difference."

"I'm sure Lilly thinks I'm a complete idiot."

"But I don't."

And with that reassurance, he smiled.

-

"I'm frustrated," he told her on her sixth brief sojourn.

"I don't blame you."

"You want to know why?" he murmured, his fingertips dipping into the soft crevices of her palm; carefully tracing her long love line.

"Do you want to tell me?"

"It's because…" he stopped, his face twisting as he tried to find the right words. In return, she watched him with anticipation.

He had never been like this before. An absolute enigma to her. And she was afraid. Terribly afraid because she couldn't understand him now. He still liked food and rapping and he still groaned whenever she told him about her 'girl' problems, and she gratefully took comfort in that. But when he wasn't thinking about the former things, she hadn't the slightest idea what his mind was mulling over. He was more complex now. More incomprehensible. And she thought she really ought to know everything about her best friend.

She felt ashamed she didn't.

"Because… I can't see your hands." She blinked in surprise and her attention perked upon his peculiar answer. He could feel her stiffen under his words and he tried to explain, "I can just _feel_ them. I can feel them grow but I can never see them. I can know that you're changing and that you're growing and I can know that I'm too, but I can't imagine it. I can't picture it. Because all I can remember seeing is what you _used_ to look like, not what you look like now. You said before that we're meant to change, that we can't stay the same because we'll never grow up then, and I sorta agree with you but… but I'll never understand. Because I can't see. I'll never see."

Miley's heart truly broke for the very first time in her life.

She thought it should have been her second time—because of her mother's death—but she decided that her heart didn't shatter because of that. After all, her mother had found peace with the world while Oliver was destined to see nothing but its shadows and darkness.

-

Her seventh and final visit to his hospital room went a bit differently than before.

Her and Lilly were on awkward, painful speaking terms. They weren't mad at one another, it was just difficult to look at each other without seeing an aspect of their former lives with a seeing Oliver and a happy Miley and Lilly. But they came together, standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Oliver to be wheeled out of his hospital room in his new wheelchair. They didn't say much in fear of breaking their nice masks they painted on the night before. So they just waited instead.

The bandages were no longer wrapped around his eyes. In their place were black sunglasses.

Oliver looked pale in the streaming sunlight but neither of the girls took any notice, immediately walking to his seated side. Lilly chatted on about how ridiculous her mom was; planning to bake two cakes for his arrival home and laughed uneasily and high-pitched at his jokes she would have normally brushed off. He didn't seem to like her new treatment and Miley's uncharacteristic silence one bit.

"Listen, talk to me when you two can treat me like I'm normal. But if you're going to act like this then leave me the _hell _alone."

Lilly glared at him in outrage. "You were never normal to begin with!"

He smiled. "That's more like it."

Maybe thing's _will_ be okay.

-

Now they were no longer looming around his hospital room. They were in _his_ room. It was cleaner than before, less things to trip over, and he was laying on top of his bed with her seated at the edge of the mattress. And then he childishly, awkwardly asked,

"How do you, like, look?"

Miley thought he was afraid she had changed from the last time he had truly saw her. And she really didn't. She looked a little worn, a little drained, but she hadn't really changed in the way he feared she had. She was still his best friend, Miley, and he would never lose her. Ever.

"Why don't you find out?" she suggested simply and he didn't understand at first but quickly comprehended what she meant when she touched his hands.

He sat up in response and didn't know what to do next so she, instead, guided his hands to her face and he thumbed her cheeks nervously, slowly. He had never done this before, not even when he could see. She remained motionless in return and he shifted his hands slightly, tracing the tip of her nose to the arch of her eyebrows and the area above her eyelids.

"There's another reason why I'm frustrated that I'm blind," he admitted quietly, removing his hands from her face.

"You can't watch me make a moron out of myself?" she supplied and he chuckled.

"Trust me, I've got enough of those type of memories to satisfy me for ten lifetimes."

"Oh, well, jeez thanks—"

"—it's because I can't see your eyes." She stopped mid-sentence and looked at him squarely in the face. "And I've always loved your eyes."

"But they're never going to change," she assured him softly, holding his hands with hers. "They're not like my hands, Oliver. They'll always be the same."

"You promise?"

She smiled, tightening her grasp. "On my daddy's highlighted hair."

"Oh man, he probably just went completely bald right now because of you."

"Oliver!" she laughed, tugging his arm sharply. "But really, you like my eyes, Oken?"

"Well if I said I liked your legs you'd probably slap me—_ow_. Okay, I guess I was wrong. You slapped me anyways."

"When did you notice my eyes?"

Oliver turned a bit paler than before, squirming slightly. "Oh, uh, I don't… I mean… um. Pass?"

"Unless you want me to slap you again, then I suggest you answer the question. Brace yourself, boy. I've got my hand raised and ready."

"_Fine_. It was… probably the first day I met you. I mean, it's not like I don't like Lilly's eyes. But… they're… _I don_'_t know_. I knew I shouldn't have said anything. It's just, the doctor's got me on all these pills and stuff, I haven't been thinking straight and—"

"You know what I like about you?"

"Um, how much of a babbling doughnut I am?"

"Just you."

There was a pregnant pause and then.

"_Me_?"

"No, the other you, ya doughnut!" She snapped, sighing when he cringed expectedly in response. "But really because, even if you're frustrated and hurt, you allow yourself to be. My mom never let herself be anything but happy. And as much as that's great, its not healthy and its not _fair_. It wasn't fair to her or to her family."

"Miley…"

"And what I like the most about you is that, even if you're… you're blind, you can still see what some other people can't. You could _always_ see it."

Oliver swallowed hard. "Oh. And what's that?"

"Me," she muttered more to herself than him. "You can still see _me_ while people like Amber and Ashley just walk over me or boys like Jake who just see someone they think is pretty for the moment or under certain lightening. You can see every aspect of me, you could always see me, and you'll still see me, no matter what."

"You mean that?" he breathed.

"Every word," she whispered before pushing him lightly. "Now don't go all soft of me, all right?"

He smiled. "Promise."

She exchanged his faint smile before pressing her lips to his cheek for a brief second. "Did you know I used to want to be a veterinarian and a nurse?"

"Good thing you're a popstar then," he replied, shrugging when he felt her stare on him. "What? You killed your last pet gold fish the same day you bought it _and_ you didn't fluff my pillows once."

She was about to protest when she found his hands cupping her cheeks, gently pulling her face towards his. Her eyes widened in anticipation only to squint with laughter when he managed to miss her lips and instead pressed his mouth against the tip of her nose. Miley couldn't help but release a giggle while he flushed in return.

"I guess I, er, could use some practice."

"Don't worry, I'll be willing to help."

Thing's were going to be just fine.


End file.
